10.29.09

NY Baseball Digest’s Mike Silva has it on good (albeit anonymous) authority Mets GM Omar Minaya is a lousy listener. This winter, Minaya might want to feign fascination with what others in the organization have to say, if not learn to work by committee, as SI.com’s Jon Heyman reports former Amazins executive Sandy Johnson is returning to the club as a VP of scouting. Quoting a “mid-level” mole, Heyman warns the addition of Johnson, “sets the stage” for MInaya’s firing, 3 years and 3.5 million remaining on his contract or not.

Mets COO Jeff Wilpon is said to have thought it imperative that Johnson, who had a big hand in building winning teams in Texas and Arizona, return to boost the front office. Johnson had previously expressed to the Mets that he was likely to retire. Johnson was said by one club official to have been given basically “a blank check” to return, signaling the Mets’ desperation to keep him. The vast majority of Mets scouts had their contracts renewed within the past few days with no raise, said to be the result of a bad economy and the team’s poor performance.

The Mets also are looking for another senior baseball executive to join Johnson and assistant GM John Ricco and form a strong triumvirate under Minaya, who is said to by people in the organization to be on thin ice after the Mets’ disappointing season. Some Mets people believe that Minaya and manager Jerry Manuel won’t survive a poor start in 2010, and that the presence of Johnson and Ricco gives the Mets an alternative should Minaya be fired